The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(92)
Headlights approached. A lone man drove a van out. Black and large, but it resembled the van from Rasool’s rental company. Ali was right—his Bhai had sent men here. He couldn’t get it straight: Shetty and Shinde had been in touch with Vijayan. The shooter was Vijayan’s man. What were both Vijayan’s and Rasool’s goons doing here? Impossible that they had joined hands across a fault line of communal differences and assassinations.
An animal cried in the distance, then stopped all of a sudden, midscream. A fox? He’d walked close enough he could see the farmhouse gates. Large and wide open, lit with white halogen lamps. No direct approach to the entrance without being spotted from the windows. He typed a message to Mhatre. As he sent it, a piercing shriek floated up from the farmhouse. A female voice. He dropped the phone in his pocket and sprinted forward.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
TARA
The men pushed branches aside and entered an overgrown backyard, Tara hoping each minute a denizen of the jungle would bite or sting one of them. Back home, the mangrove was alive with spiders and snakes. This forest seemed to be ailing. Plastic packets wreathed the tree roots.
Watch everything. Remember.
She feigned a bout of dizziness that slowed her down, and made note of the number of doors and windows at the back of the sprawling farmhouse: three entrances leading up from the grass, eight windows on each floor—if she was able to use the phone she’d stolen, she’d tell Arnav.
They entered, leaving the insect noises behind, the door opened by a bald old man with the straight posture and crisp clothes of a waiter at a good hotel. She collapsed to the ground, so they’d think she was still drugged. She took in a wide courtyard, open to the sky, with some kind of garden, before they hauled her down a flight of stairs into a room, dumped her on the floor, and locked her in. She had glimpsed two long pillared corridors on both sides with several doors. The room next to hers was guarded, and she heard sobbing. Pia? If that was her daughter, she would risk it all to reach her.
She recalled hearing the word “inspector.” They were posting watch.
She was grateful they didn’t think of tying her up. She struggled to her feet and untied the rough cloth from across her mouth. Her legs hurt from the fall earlier, but she was otherwise in good shape. Her room was empty, with light from one bare, dim bulb. A framed photo far above her on the wall. A high, grilled window. Shadows of tall grass. Ground level. She was in a basement, then. She would do her best to break out and get Pia, but she must talk to Arnav first. Tara reached for the phone tucked at her waist, switched it on and turned it to silent. With trembling hands, she dialed his number.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
BILAL
Bilal’s unease increased as the evening wore on. Vijayan’s men lounged about, seven of them, ostensibly because the boy wanted them to remove the package this time. Your Rasool failed me, the boy had said, and this is the real Item Number. Can’t make mistakes.
Their job was to wait till it was late enough for them to carry the package out and sanitize the workshop.
You deserve a break. Take an early night, but stay here in case I need anything later.
The boy was fiendish in his cunning, but Bilal wondered how he hoped to hide the carnage in the workshop from Vijayan, escape blackmail from his Uhnna.
He asked no questions of the boy because he knew he wouldn’t receive answers.
The boy had been all smiles today, making no secret of his glee in anticipation of the Item Number. He thought Bilal suspected nothing, but anticipating threats was practically Bilal’s job description. Fill a need before it was voiced. Prevent a disaster before it occurred. That was how he’d survived with the master, and now the master’s son. Bilal made himself useful, serving dinner to Vijayan’s team, unasked, doing a job before he was bidden.
He’d accepted the delivery of the woman, and invited the three Malayali crooks who brought her in to have a bite with their colleagues in the upstairs dining hall. He sent his assistant with water for the little girl, and asked him to stay on watch, while Bilal kept the plates of Vijayan’s men filled.
Instinct told him to run, but in some ways, he was like the boy. The boy was afraid of the Item Number, but he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. Bilal cursed himself. He was scared of the boy now, but he couldn’t abandon the child he’d raised into a man.
Vijayan’s crew thought he didn’t speak Malayalam. Pity. They didn’t know Bilal Musliyar was born a Malayali. He’d forgotten most of it in his master’s service, but not so much he didn’t understand when someone spoke of killing him while he brought them chicken curry and rice. They planned to get him in his sleep. He had half a mind to drug them all, but that would get him on the don’s hit list.
Heart in his mouth, Bilal sneaked back to his room to tell Rasool’s men to be ready to escort him out. He found his semi-dark room a haze of cigarette smoke, and a fierce, whispered discussion in progress.
“You didn’t tell us you had Vijayan’s men here,” the leader’s tone was accusing. Taller than the others, he had the air of a don-in-the-making.
“My boss got them. I didn’t know.”
“Our boy here,” the leader said, pointing to Bilal’s scruffy pretend-assistant, “tells us there’s a little girl in the room in the other corridor. We’ve been following her, but she was spirited away.”